Eyes on Me
by Your Iron Lung
Summary: Mourning over a friends death is bad enough, and feeling responsible is twice as bad. Realizing that Roxas' death was in fact partially due to Axels behaviour, Axel confides in an enigmatic silver-haired man in a church. AkuRoku


'_Abuse a man unjustly and you will make friends for him'_

_Edgar Watson Howe_

It was late in the night when Axel padded up the lonely cobblestone steps of the church. He paused briefly before the giant wooden doors, sighing as he adjusted his maroon scarf around his jacket collar awkwardly. Sighing again, he opened the doors with a bowed head and shuffled through the dimly lit church, inwardly glad that there was only one other person there, and he seemed to be asleep.

He took a seat in a pew midway through the church, casting his acidic eyes on the large cross set above the altar. Axel had seen crosses before, but none quite as elaborate as the one set before him. The detail that surrounded Jesus nailed up on the cross was exquisite, and Axel couldn't look away.

Axel was, by no means, a religious man, having forsaken it when he met Roxas; and even then he hadn't much cared for it. So why was he here, he pondered to himself as his doleful eyes shifted to his hands resting on the pew before him.

He heard a sigh and a bit of a groan as the man sitting behind him came to, but Axel didn't care. He didn't care about anyone but Roxas, and now he was gone, and it was his fault. With a dull bit of surprise, he realized that the silver-haired man who had been sleeping behind him had come to sit in the pew in front of him and was now staring at the cross as Axel had been doing moments before.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Axel shrugged and leaned back against the stiff wooden pew, putting on an uncaring face as he examined the tan fellow before him as he turned to look back at Axel.

"It's a bit late for a confession, don't you think?"

Again, Axel shrugged as he crossed his arms, hoping his indifference would make the man leave him alone.

Instead, the man smiled and chuckled a bit, extending his hand.

"I'm Xemnas."

"Axel." He said, leaning forward to shake the mans hand.

"Well, Axel, what brings you to the church at this hour?" he said with the same smile on his face.

Axel shrugged yet again and sat back against the wooden thing, squirming to get comfortable. The man laughed.

"Yeah, they take a bit to get used to. I don't get how anyone can willingly come here to sit for hours listening to all this stuff they could easily learn about themselves."

Axel snorted in agreement as he shifted his attention to the stained glass windows that were spread across the walls.

"Not much of a talker, eh?" He earned another shrug from Axel, which made his smile bigger.

"I didn't mean to stay so late myself, but I fell asleep while praying. Such a boring thing to do, haha."

'What is _with _this guy?' Axel thought to himself as he forced his attention back to the man before him, who was again looking at the cross.

"I was praying for forgiveness." The man said with a hint of sadness. "You see, I just left my wife. Didn't leave word, didn't tell her why, didn't hint at it, nothing. Just upped and left."

Axel's curiosity was piqued, but he wouldn't let it show as he watched Xemnas' sharp yellow eyes grow soft.

"We had three kids, but I just couldn't keep it up. We got married after we found out I knocked her up, and my heart just wasn't into it, y'know?" Xemnas chuckled softly to himself as his eyes lit up and he stared back at Axel. "I told you why I was here; gonna tell me what you're doing here?"

The red-haired man gazed back coolly, debating on whether or not to tell him. He let out a sigh as he sat up to rest his arms on his legs, staring at the ground. What harm could it do? Xemnas seemed nice enough.

"I…" He paused, frowning as he tried to gather his thoughts together to form coherent sentences. "I'm not sure why I ended up _here _exactly, but I guess it's got something to do with my friends death."

"Ah, I'm sorry to hear that. People in a state of grief need to go somewhere to vent it, and sometimes they'll go to a place where they know they'll be listened to. Or something of the sort; I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to say."

Axel's frown deepened as his eyebrows knit together, eyes shifting back and forth in their sockets as he pondered what the man said.

"It's not that I'm upset about it. I mean, I _am _upset, but I think it's because I feel responsible. I kinda think that I let it happen."

Xemnas gazed at the red-head staring at the floor before gazing back at the wooden figure of Christ. "How'd he die, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Murdered." Axel spat, glaring at the floor. "By his old man, no less."

"How could you possibly feel responsible for that?"

Axel shut his eyes and ground his teeth together, clenching his hands open and closed as they rested against the top of his head.

"See, I knew what was going on between them. His dad, he had this habit of getting drunk and beating Roxas; that was his name, Roxas." Axel paused, smiling as he said his name. "But I never told anyone, because Roxas didn't want anyone to know. Or so I thought."

"What do you mean?"

Axel sat back and gazed into Xemnas' eyes as Xemnas gazed into his own.

"Turns out Roxas had his own way of letting people know he was in trouble at home, and all I succeeded in doing was preventing him from getting the help he needed."

"You couldn't have known. It wasn't your fault." Xemnas said gently as Axel frowned at himself.

"But I think I did." He said, biting his lip. "I think I didn't want him to let other people know; _I _wanted to be the hero; _I _wanted to save him. Not some random person Roxas didn't know. I wanted Roxas to love me for saving him; and I couldn't even do that."

Xemnas' eyes softened as he watched Axel direct his face to the floor to let the tears roll softly off his face.

**A/N: **I'm sorry that this seemed a bit drab and boring, but I promise that the rest of the story will be better, seeing as how it'll actually go into Axel and Roxas' lives and stuff. This chapter had to be done so that you wouldn't be confused as fuck when it suddenly reverts to Axel talking with Xemnas in the church. Also, I'd like to point out that I'm not religious at all, and if for some reason I offend you later on in the story, I apologize in advance. I'mma be taking a lot of stabs at 'God' and stuff. So yeah. Thanks for reading this bit and please take a few seconds to let me know how I'm doing and if I can change anything. Peace.


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